Whats up with these Acros?

seamcintyre

New member
Hey all,

I have a 250g Marineland DD tank 60"x36" It has been up for almost a year now (literally 1 year in 6 days)

I have an efflo and a shortcake acro that I purchased from a local reefer. They are acting odd. I placed them both in the tank roughly three months ago. They have grown quite a bit, and encrusted on the rock quite well.

They both were really brown when I got them, now they are what I am assuming are coloring up? My main concern is that they are not doing well. Perhaps the shortcake is maybe bleaching? It has a lot of new growth but they seem to be void of color, even though it has good polyp extension. The efflo on the other hand seems to be pretty brown. I can see some polyps but they are very little.

I have an ATI Powermodule with 8 bulbs (4 coral plus and 4 blue plus) and 3 LED clusters (only at 30% royal blue leds only) on a 10 hour photoperiod.

CAL: 450
ALK: 8-8.3
MAG: 1400
PH: 8-8.1
P04: 0?
N03: 0?
I'm sure the phosphate and nitrate are not literally zero however the tests seem to think that.

I have a probe for PH and Temp and use salifert for everything else. I dose 2 part BRS about 132ml daily via dosing pumps. I have minimal algae growth on the glass and a couple SMALL patches of cyanobacteria. I normally wipe the glass off twice a week and clean the cyano when I do water changes. Which are weekly about 20 gallons with IO and RO/DI. I also siphon my sand when I do a water change, there is roughly a 1" sand bed that is purely for ascetics.

I run filter socks which I change every three days and an eshopps s200 cone skimmer. For flow I have three MP40s and an Iwaki 40rlxt.

I only have nine reasonably sized fish which I feed three times daily, LRS frozen food and NLS pellets. Sometimes I give nori as well.


Here is a picture, sorry for quality it is from my phone.
So do they look alright to you? Do they need more time? Any suggestions or comments would be helpful thanks.

jde3.jpg
 
i think your just watching them coloring up. IME they brown, then the tissue starts to look healthier (usually accompanied by little color or at least it looks that way compared to the darker brown tissue), and then they start to fill in with color. encrusting at the base is always a good sign. you know theyre setting the "roots" to grow up nice and big :bounce2:
 
Efflo's are know to be brown IMO. It is rare to find one that colours up in an aquarium.

You SSC may just need some more time. That is if everything else is showing good colour in your tank.
 
Thanks for the replies!

Everything else shows IMO "decent" color. Everything seems to be at the very least encrusting and having polyps out.
 
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